Join us for an evening of poetry and music when Irish and Irish-at-heart celebrate St Patrick’s Day at the Union St Grotto. Bring your limericks and Irish flavored writings and be prepared for some shamrock inspired musings and laughter. Special guests, Irish entertainers, Mary Murphy and David Somers, will share a few songs and stories. All ages welcome. Arrive early and take advantage of the Grotto’s St Paddy’s Day food and drink specials. To pre-register for a reading of original limericks or Irish inspired poetry, email: islandsuem@gmail.com Sponsored by Elevate the Arts – Courtenay’s downtown artistic extravaganza held the first week of June. Click here to learn more.

The Elevate Arts Festival is a 4 day multi-disciplinary arts festival focused on barrier free, boundary pushing and community building art, culture and urban reclamation.

The Elevate Arts Festival is all about breaking down the barriers between culture producers and culture consumers and working together to create temporary utopias to imagine possible futures for our community and the planet.

We do this through bringing together local and visiting artists and musicians, arts organizations, schools, businesses, community groups and others to experiment, engage, explore and excite each other!

We present the festival in the urban heart of the Comox Valley in the spirit of celebrating public spaces and downtown cores as ‘community gathering spaces” where culture, ideas, art, craft and talents are exchanged and new ideas are born.

Finally, the Elevate the Arts Festival is all about respect for and celebration of the incredible scope of human diversity.